Polgara the Sorceress (20 page)

‘Actually, dear chaps,’ Kamion said smoothly, ‘the land belongs to the crown. The entire island does. You hold
all
your land in trust – at the crown’s pleasure.’

‘We could probably argue the fine points of the law for weeks,’ Daran said, ‘but legal arguments are very boring, so, in order to save time – and bloodshed – we’ll simply divide that disputed parcel of land right down the middle. Half goes to Baron Garhein, and Half to Baron Altor.’

‘Unthinkable!’ Garhein protested.

‘Start thinking about goats then, Garhein, or landless vagabondage. You
will
do as I tell you to do.’ Then my nephew’s eyes narrowed. ‘Now, just to keep you two and your assorted partisans and kinsmen out of mischief, you’re going to build a fifteen-foot wall right down the middle of that parcel of land. It’ll give you something to do, and it’ll keep you away from each other. I want to see a lot of progress on that wall, gentlemen, and I want to see both of you out there carrying rocks, too. You’re not going to just pass this off to your underlings.’

‘That’s twenty miles, your Highness!’ Altor gasped.

‘Is that all? You should be able to finish up in a decade or two, then. I want you to go to opposite ends and start building. I’ll have the sergeant here mark the exact center and you can think of it as a race. I might even let the winner keep his head as a prize. Lord Brand knows the name of every one of your partisans, and they’ll be joining you in your great work – either willingly or in chains. Have I made myself clear?’

They glowered at him, but wisely chose not to say anything.

‘I’d suspect that you gentlemen aren’t going to be popular among your kinsmen,’ Kamion noted. ‘I suggest that you wear mail shirts during the construction – just as a precaution.’

‘Now we come to that sick fellow over in the corner,’ Daran said, rising from his father’s throne rather grimly.

By now Karak had pretty much emptied his stomach of everything he’d eaten or drunk for the past several weeks. He was pale and trembling violently when the hulking sergeant dragged him back to the dais.

‘Decent men don’t beat their wives, Karak,’ Daran said, ‘so I’m going to teach you decency right here and now.’ He reached behind the throne and picked up a long, limber whip.

‘You
can’t!’
Garhein almost screamed. ‘My son’s a nobleman!’

‘You and I seem to have conflicting definitions of nobility, Garhein,’ Daran told him. ‘Since this sodden beast is your son, though, I’ll defer to you in the matter. I’m either going to flog him or chop off both his hands. Take your pick.’

‘Behanding him
would
keep him from hitting women, your Highness,’ Kamion noted clinically, ‘and it might cut down on his drinking, too – unless he’d like to lap his beer out of a bowl like a dog.’

‘Good point, Lord Brand,’ Daran noted. He reached up and took down his father’s sword, which leaped joyously into bright blue flame. ‘Well, Garhein?’ he said, ‘which is it going to be?’ He held out the flaming sword in one hand and the whip in the other.

Garhein gaped at him.

‘Answer me!’
Daran roared.

‘Th-the whip, your Highness,’ Garhein stammered.

‘Wise choice,’ Kamion murmured. ‘Having a son and heir without any hands could be
so
demeaning.’

Then the Master of the Guard, who’d obviously already been instructed upon what to do, ripped off Karak’s doublet, kicked his feet out from under him and seized him by one ankle. ‘Just to keep him from crawling under the
furniture, your Highness,’ he explained, firmly planting his foot on Karak’s other ankle.

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Daran said. Then he hung the sword back up, let his cloak fall to the floor, removed his doublet, and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Pushing right along then,’ he said and proceeded to flog the screaming, squirming drunkard to within an inch of his life. Cellan, I noticed, loved every minute of it. Alorns are such a simple, uncomplicated people at times.

After Daran had finished, he tossed his whip down and picked up his clothes again. ‘I think that concludes our business here for the day, my friends,’ he announced to the shocked assemblage. ‘If I remember correctly, the archery contest begins this afternoon. I might even shoot off a quiver of arrows myself. I’ll see you all there, then.’

After the three of us had returned to Kamion’s study, I put it to the two of them directly. ‘You had that flogging all planned in advance, didn’t you?’

‘Of course, Aunt Pol,’ Daran grinned at me.

‘Without consulting me?’

‘We didn’t want to upset you, Pol,’ Kamion said smoothly. ‘Did you really find it too offensive?’

I pretended to consider it. ‘Not really,’ I conceded. ‘Considering Karak’s behavior, it was more or less appropriate.’

‘We talked about some alternatives,’ Kamion said. ‘I thought it might be sort of nice if I called that beer-soaked bully out, gave him a sword and then chopped him to pieces, but his Highness decided that might upset you, so we settled for the flogging instead – less messy, you understand.’

‘And the threat to chop off his hands?’

‘I just made that up on the spur of the moment, Aunt Pol,’ Daran admitted. ‘I think it might have gotten my point about wife-beating across, though.’ Then he snapped his fingers. ‘Why don’t we enter that in the criminal code, Kamion?’

‘You’re a barbarian, Daran,’ I accused him.

‘No, Aunt Pol, I’m an Alorn. I know my people, and I know what frightens them. I don’t want to rule by terror, but I
do
want other Rivans to understand that things can
get very nasty if they do something that I don’t like, and I
really
don’t like wife-beating.’ He leaned back in his chair and looked speculatively out the window at the bright sunny day. ‘That’s really at the center of all power, Aunt Pol,’ he mused. ‘We can try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any ruler is based on a threat. Fortunately, we don’t have to carry that threat out too often. If I’d known I was going to have to be a savage to sit in my father’s place, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’d still be running, and neither you nor grandfather would ever have been able to find me.’

I was so proud of him at that point that I almost exploded.

News of Daran’s handling of the feud between Garhein and Altor spread far and wide throughout the Isle, and the Rivans began to look at their youthful Prince Regent with a new respect. Daran was working out just fine.

Anrak sailed into the harbor late the following summer. Over the years I’d noted that Anrak moved around a lot. Most men settle down eventually, but Anrak was born to wander. The cousin of Iron-grip, Bull-neck, and Fleet-foot had grey hair by now, but there was still an irrepressible quality of youth about him. He visited with Riva for quite some time and then joined Kamion, Daran, and me in a blue-draped conference chamber high in one of the towers of the Citadel. As Kamion’s seemingly endless succession of children had begun to spill over into his study, it had become necessary for us to find another place to work. ‘My cousin’s not going to get over his wife’s death, is he, Pol?’ Anrak asked as we all sat at a long conference table. ‘He talks about old times, but he doesn’t seem to even mention anything that’s happened recently. It’s almost as if his life ended when your sister died.’

‘In many ways it did, Anrak,’ I told him, ‘and mine very nearly did, too.’

He sighed. ‘I’ve seen it happen before, Pol. It’s too bad.’ He sighed again and then looked at Daran. ‘How’s he doing?’ he asked as if Daran weren’t sitting right there.

‘We have some hopes for him,’ Kamion replied. Then he recounted the story of the flogging.

‘Good for you, Daran,’ Anrak said approvingly. ‘Oh, before I forget, my uncle Bear-shoulders asked me to pass something along to you.’

‘How is he?’ Daran asked.

Anrak shrugged. ‘Old,’ he said. ‘You still wouldn’t want to cross him, though. He’s having trouble with the Bear-Cult, and he wanted me to warn you about it.’ He leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Back in the old days, the Cult didn’t really have any kind of coherent system of beliefs. All they were really doing was
trying to find some theological justification for pillaging the southern kingdoms. That all changed after Belgarath and the others took the Orb back from Torak, though. Now they want Riva – or his successor – to lead them south with that flaming sword. Right now, Riva’s at the very center of what the Cultists choose to call their religion.’

‘We’ve had some problems here, too,’ Kamion noted. ‘Elthek, the Rivan Deacon, leads the Cult here on the Isle. Since he’s the high priest of Belar, we have to step around him rather carefully. Iron-grip didn’t want any direct confrontations with the Church, so he didn’t step on the Deacon’s neck the way he probably should have.’

‘I’m not nearly as accommodating as my father is,’ Daran noted. The time’s not far off when I’m going to kill Elthek.’

‘Isn’t that illegal?’ Anrak asked.

‘I’ll change the law,’ Daran replied.

I looked at him rather closely and saw that it was almost time to pull him up short. My nephew, emboldened by his success with Garhein and Altor, hovered right on the verge of becoming a tyrant.

‘Is Bull-neck having the same problems in Drasnia?’ Kamion asked Anrak.

‘It’s even worse there,’ Anrak replied moodily. ‘After Fleet-foot trampled all over the Cult in Algaria, the survivors fled into the fens and then into the border country off toward Gar og Nadrak. The Cult controls virtually everything east of Boktor.’

‘I’d say that the core of the problem’s here, then,’ Kamion observed. ‘This is where the Orb is, and if the Cult can gain control of the Orb’s Guardian, we’ll all be marching south before long.’

‘You could solve that by making every priest of Belar here on the Isle swim back to Val Alorn,’ Anrak said with an evil grin.

‘In full armor,’ Daran added.

‘No.’ I said it firmly. ‘Some of those priests are innocent, and people need the comforts of religion. I
do
think that Kamion’s right, though. We
don’t
want the Cult so close to the Orb.’

‘What’s the alternative to extermination, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked.

‘Exile?’ Kamion suggested.

‘You aren’t going to be popular in Val Alorn and Boktor if you send them a fresh wave of fanatics,’ Anrak said.

‘I wasn’t thinking of that,’ Kamion told him. ‘I want these home-grown Cultists someplace where we can keep an eye on them.’

‘Dungeons are good for that,’ Anrak said.

‘It costs too much money to keep people locked up,’ Daran objected. Why is it that every ruler in the world spends all his time worrying about money? Then my nephew’s eyes brightened. ‘Lord Brand,’ he said, ‘do you remember what I threatened Garhein and Altor with last summer?’

‘Sending them to the northern end of the Isle, you mean?’

‘Exactly.’

‘The Cultists would just shed their vestments and sneak back, your Highness.’

‘It’s a little hard to sneak across open water, Kamion,’ Daran laughed. ‘There are some little islets strung out above the main Isle. If we send all the cultists up there, we won’t have to worry about them any more.’

‘They’re Alorns, your Highness,’ Kamion reminded him. ‘Boat-building’s in their blood.’

‘What are they going to build boats out of, my Lord?’

Trees, I’d imagine.’

There won’t
be
any trees on those islets, Kamion. I’ll have all the trees cut down before we exile the Cult.’

‘You’re still going to have to feed them, Daran,’ Anrak said.

‘They can feed themselves. We’ll give them seed, animals, and farm tools, and they can either take up farming or starve.’

Anrak’s grin grew broader. ‘It’s got some possibilities,’ he agreed. ‘You’ll have to patrol the coast of their private little prison to keep their adherents from rowing boats across the water to rescue them, though.’

‘I think I can persuade my grandfather Cherek to handle that for me. He doesn’t want any more Cult priests in Val
Alorn, so I’m sure he’ll want to keep
our
Cultists here. He’s got ships out there to hold off the Angaraks anyway, so it won’t really cost him anything extra.’

“The only thing left is to find an excuse for it,’ Kamion told them.

‘Any cooked-up story would work, wouldn’t it?’ Anrak asked.

Kamion winced. ‘Let’s try for a little authenticity, Anrak. Lies get out of hand sometimes. You have to keep expanding them.’

‘Maybe we could catch them during one of their secret ceremonies,’ Anrak suggested. “They’re fairly offensive to decent people.’

‘Oh?’ Daran said. ‘What’s involved?’

Anrak shrugged. ‘They all put on bear-skins and get roaring drunk. Their wives and daughters don’t wear anything at all, and there’s a lot of indiscriminate–’ He hesitated, looked at me, and then he actually blushed. ‘Anyway,’ he rushed on, ‘the priests perform what they call magic, which isn’t really anything but fairly clumsy carnival trickery, and – ’

‘Perfect!’ I exclaimed.

‘I didn’t follow that, Aunt Pol,’ Daran said.

‘Didn’t Elthek persuade your father to outlaw witchcraft?’

‘Well – yes, I suppose so. It was really just a way to keep the physicians from curing illnesses, though – getting rid of the competition.’

‘A strict interpretation of those laws would make those secret Cult ceremonies with all that imitation magic a form of witchcraft, wouldn’t it?’

‘Oh, that’s beautiful, Pol!’ Kamion said admiringly.

‘If we can find out where and when one of those ceremonies is taking place, we can swoop in during the entertainment and round them up,’ Anrak said. ‘We’ll have enough to indict the whole Cult.’ He thought for a moment. ‘If you can hold off until the autumn equinox, you’ll probably get every Cult-member on the Isle. That’s a big day for the Cult.’

‘Oh?’ Daran said. ‘Why’s that?’

“There’s a tradition that Torak cracked the world on the autumnal equinox. I’m not sure why, but the Cult always celebrates the event. Every district in Cherek, Drasnia, and Algaria has its own Cult party on that night.’

‘I’ve got informants among the general population,’ Kamion mused. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to find out where those ceremonies take place. I’ll put out the word, and we should have what we need in a week or so.’

Daran sighed disconsolately. ‘Another perfectly good idea just went down a rat-hole,’ he mourned.

‘Which idea was that, dear?’ I asked him.

‘I was hoping that I could make Elthek himself take up farming, but if we exile the whole lot of them, the ordinary people in the Cult are probably going to feed the priests.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Daran,’ Anrak said. ‘I’ve sailed along the north coast of the Isle. There are
lots
of islets up there, but none of them is really big enough to support more than a half-dozen people. If he wants to eat, Elthek’s going to have to get his hands dirty.’

‘Marvelous,’ Daran beamed.

Kamion’s spies advised us that, unlike the Cult practice in the other Alorn kingdoms, the Cultists here
all
gathered in a narrow gorge in the mountains rearing above the Citadel. Evidently our Deacon believed in keeping a firm grip on his adherents.

Kamion and I had a small argument about a week before the autumnal equinox. He was
very
upset when I told him that I was going with him to that gorge. ‘Out of the question,’ he told me. ‘It’ll be too dangerous.’

‘And what are you going to do if it turns out that the Deacon can
really
perform magic, Kamion? You won’t be able to help Daran very much if Elthek turns you into a toad, you know.’

That’s absurd, Pol. Nobody can do that’

‘Don’t be too sure, Kamion.
I
probably could – if I set my mind to it. If Elthek
does
have talent in that area, I’m the only one on the Isle who can counter it. I’m coming along, Kamion, so don’t argue with me about it.’

The soldiers who were to take the Cult into custody were
all carefully selected, and for reasons of security they were
not
told what their mission was going to be. Kamion dispatched them into the mountains in squads with instructions to stay out of sight. The Cultists started drifting into the city in the waning days of summer, and then began drifting out again after a few days as Elthek sent them up the gorge to make preparations for the celebration. The whole affair took on an almost comic aspect with groups of armed men creeping around in the forests assiduously avoiding each other. I spent a great deal of
my
time in feathers during those two weeks, flying from tree to tree as I kept an eye on the Cultists to make certain that there weren’t any last-minute changes of plan.

Our
plan was really quite simple. We decided to secrete a fair number of highly respected nobles and commons in the woods on the steep sides of the gorge to observe Elthek’s ceremony, and then, when we had enough damning evidence – and when the Cultists were too drunk to stand – we’d send in the soldiers to round them all up. It wasn’t until the day preceding the autumnal equinox that Kamion and I quite firmly told Daran that he wouldn’t be going along. ‘You’ll be sitting in judgment, your Highness,’ Kamion told him. ‘You’ll lose all appearance of impartiality if you lead the attack.’

‘But – ’ Daran started to protest.

‘No buts, dear,’ I said. ‘If you were actually the king, it might be different, but you’re only your father’s regent, so you have to be a little careful. It’s your father’s throne you’re defending, not your own.’

‘It
will
be.’

‘There’s a lot of difference between “will be” and “is”, Daran. You have to give the appearance of impartiality in this situation. You can spend tomorrow evening sitting in front of a mirror practicing expressions of shock and outrage. Then, when Anrak, Kamion and I drag the Cultists before you and present the case against them, no one can accuse you of having been in on our scheme from the very start. Appearances are
very
important in situations like this.’

‘Your Highness might want to keep in mind the fact
that witchcraft’s a capital offense,’ Kamion pointed out. ‘In actuality, you could burn the lot of them at the stake.’

‘Could I really do that, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me.

‘Don’t get carried away, dear. Sentencing them to exile’s really an act of mercy, you realize.’

‘Part of the idea here is to build your reputation, your Highness,’ Kamion explained.

‘I don’t think it’s very fair,’ Daran sulked.

‘No, your Highness, it’s not. It’s politics, and politics aren’t meant to be fair. Oh, incidentally, after the trial, it might not be a bad idea for you to agonize over your final judgment for a week or so.’

Daran stared at him blankly.

‘It’ll give me some time to spread word of the charges and our proof all over the Isle – public relations, you understand.’

‘I know what I’m going to do to them, Brand.’

‘Of course you do, dear,’ I told him. ‘Just don’t do it so quickly. Give Elthek and his cohorts some time to worry before you pass judgment on them.’

‘Where am I going to keep them while I pretend to be making up my mind?’

‘Elthek’s got a fairly extensive dungeon under the temple of Belar, your Highness,’ Kamion suggested without even cracking a smile. ‘As long as it’s there anyway – ’

Daran burst out laughing at that point.

And then the day arrived, dawning murky with the threat of incipient rain. ‘Wonderful,’ Anrak said sourly, looking out the window of our blue-draped conference room as morning stained the sky over the Isle. ‘I
hate
crawling around in the woods when it’s raining.’

‘You won’t melt,’ I assured him. ‘If you’d like, you could bring a cake of soap along tonight. I think it’s almost time for your annual bath.’

‘I think you did me a big favor that day back in the Vale when you turned down my marriage proposal, Pol,’ he replied.

‘What’s this?’ Daran asked.

‘I was young and foolish at the time, Daran,’ Anrak explained. ‘Some men just aren’t meant to get married.’

That gave me something to think about. Daran would be twenty-three years old on his next birthday, and I didn’t really want him to grow
too
accustomed to bachelorhood.

It rained off and on all that day, a filmy, misty kind of rain that wreathed the towers of the Citadel and obscured the city and the harbor. The sky cleared in the late afternoon, though, and we were treated to one of those glorious sunsets that almost make living in rainy country worthwhile.